two parchments spread out upon the table. A few words passed between the earl and his man of business, and then the former took up a pen, and signed the parchment at a spot pointed out.

"This, Charles," he said, turning to my cousin, "is a deed settling the sum of five thousand per annum upon you, till my death puts you in possession of the family estates."

"This, Louis," he continued, turning to me with the pen still in his hand, "is a deed, settling two thousand per annum upon you for life, and you will find yourself further remembered in my will."

He stooped to sign the parchment, but I laid my hand upon it saying, boldly, but in a commonplace tone, "Stop, my lord, if you please."

Why?" he exclaimed, looking up.

"First," I answered, "because it is quite honor, and pleasure enough for me to be your acknowledged grandson; and secondly, because I think it right to inform you, before you do what I could in no degree expect, that I am about to be married. The engagement was formed before I had the slightest idea that I was in any way related to you, otherwise I should certainly have consulted you before I entered into it."

I could see by Westover's face that he thought I was going wrong, but I was not. The old man laughed, and said, Well, boy, I have no objection to your marrying."

66

"And any one I like?" I asked.

"And any one you like," he answered. "I do not carry my superintendence beyond one generation. That is more than enough for any one."

"Then, my dear and noble lord," I replied, "let me add, that the one I like, is I am sure, one you will like, too, for she is as generous and as nobleminded as yourself—noble, by birth and by character -a lady in every respect-and well fitted to be admitted into your family."

every one to marry one of his own country-she is the daughter of the Comte de Salins, and a nobler or a purer name is not to be found for five hundred years-is not to be found in the pages of French history."

"Well, well," said the old earl, "I shall be very happy to see her; "and he signed the parchment, adding, "Bring her here, my good boy, bring her here. You will soon know if I like her. If I do I shall kiss her, and do n't you be jealous; if I do not I shall give her three fingers, and call her Mademoiselle;" and he laughed gayly.

Two days afterward, my mother and I brought up Mariette to visit the old earl. She was looking exquisitely lovely, her eyes full of the light of hope and happiness, her face glowing with sweet emotions, and her frame tremulous with feelings which added grace to all her graces. She leaned upon my mother's arm, as we entered the room where the old earl received us, and I could perceive as he gazed at her, that he was surprised and struck with her extraordinary beauty. It was impossible to look upon that face and form and not be captivated. He rose from his chair at once, advanced and took her in his arms, and kissing her with more tenderness than I ever saw him display, he said, "Welcome, welcome, my dear child. If Louis does not make you a good husband, I will strike him out of my will, so see that you keep him in order."

Westover and I were married on the same day. I have no reason to doubt that he was happy, and of my own fate I am very sure.

By a decree of the Cour de Cassation in the first year of the reign of Louis XVIII., by the grace of God King of France, the sentence passed upon Louis, Comte de Lacy, was, after a great many vus, and interrogés broken, and annulled, the memory of the said count rehabilitee, and his family, restored to all

AWAY! away! I would not live,

Proud arbiter of life and death,
Although the proffered boon of breath,

Which fain thou wouldst, but canst not, give,

Were Immortality.

Though all, that poets love to dream,
Of bright and beautiful were blent
To flow in one delicious stream,
Till time itself were spent ;
Though glories, such as never met
In mortal monarch's coronet,
Were poured in one unclouded blaze
On Cleopatra's deathless days,

I would not bear the wretched strife,
The feverish agony of life,
The little aims, the ends yet less,

The hopes bud-blighted ere they bloom,
The joys that end in bitterness,

The race that rests but in the tomb, These, these, not death, are misery. Nay! tell not me of pomp or pleasure, Of empire, or renown, or treasure, Of friendship's faith or love's devotionThings treacherous as the wind-rocked oceanFor I have proved them all. Away! If there be aught to bless In rapture's goblet, I have drained That draught misnamed of happiness, Till not a lurking drop remained

Of honey-mantled gall.

Oh! who would live, that once hath seen
The Lamia Pleasure's mask removed;
That once hath learned how false the sheen
Of all he erst so madly loved?
And I have seen, have learned, the whole;
Till, for the passions fierce and wild
That torrent-like defied control,
A wretched apathy of soul,
Exhausted rapture's gloomy child,
Hath crept into my very blood,
Chilling the tides that wont to flow
Like lava in their scorching flood-
An apathy more dull than care,
More sad than pain, more still than wo-

Twin sister to despair.

And thinkest thou I would stoop to live
On mercy such as Rome might give-
Or what is Rome, and what am I,
That I should bend a servile knee,
The free-born daughter of the free,
To her, whose victor lords have thrown
Their sceptre-swords before my throne,
And lost their empires at my frown?
Or deemest thou, impotent and base,
That I, of eldest earthly race,
Will thread in slow procession pace
Rome's proud triumphal way-

A crownless queen, a shameless slave,
Beside thy golden chariot's nave,
With fettered hands supine to crave

Plebeian pity-Roman ruth-
And with unroyal tears, forsooth!

"To make a Roman Holyday?" An emperor thou! and I-no more! My foot is on life's latest shore.

Away! even now I die.

I feel it coursing through my veins,
The peace that soon shall still my pains,
And calm my ceaseless wo.

Away, proud chief! I would not yield
My empire for the conquered world
O'er which thine eagle wing is furled-
My empire in the grave.
Hades shall rise my steps to greet,
Ancestral kings my advent meet,
Sesostris, of the man-drawn car,
And Rhamses, thunderbolt of war,
Amenophis, of giant frame,
And Tathrak, of immortal name.
The mighty Ptolemies shall rise
With greeting in their glorious eyes,
And cry from lips no longer dumb-
"Hail, sister queen, for thou hast come
Right royally thy feres among.
Our thousand thrones have tarried long,

Till thou shouldst mount thine own.
Last, loveliest, frailest of our line,
By this immortal death of thine
Thou hast outdared all daring-thou
Art first among us. Lo! we bow-
We kneel-before thee! Sister queen,
The end of fortune here is seen,

Ascend thy fated throne."
And now my woman-heart is steeled;
Call forth the bravest of the brave,
Your reapers of the crimson field,
To whom the battle-cry is breath,

To look upon a woman's death.

I have outlived my love, my power,
My country's freedom, people's name,
My flush of youth, my beauty's flower,
But not, oh not! my thirst of fame.
The Pyramids before me lie,
Piercing the deep Egyptian sky,
Memorials of the nameless dead,
To build whose glory thousands bled—
And I, the latest of their race,
A captive in their dwelling place,
Die, yet survive them all.

I tell thee, when no trophies shine
Upon the proud Capitoline,
When Julius' fame is all forgot,
Even where his honored relics rot,

Ages shall sing my fall.

Proud Roman, thou hast won. But 1,
More gladly than thou winnest, die.
Away! when crowns were on my brow,
And nations did my rising greet,
And Cæsar groveled at my feet,

I lived not-never lived till now.

Some book I was reading, or some friend I was talking with the other day, suggested the matter and left me in a revery of reminiscence.

There came back to me the memory of pleasant dreams which I was perplexed to divorce from dream-like reality, of presents and promises, of nursery tales and melodies, of first disappointments, punishments, and altercations, of all the scenery between babyhood and boyhood, and of the constant wonder amid which my mind wrought its first essays.

The quiet village street between my father's house and place of business, was the only one I was in the custom of seeing, and at such times generally in charge of an attendant, unless, with soiled face and apron full of toys, 1 adventured alone to run the hazard of the occasional carriages, and finally to be found asleep beside the fence and carried home to my anxious mother. When taken to another street, I seemed to pass to another realm. I roamed admiringly through the terra incognita; "the Bank," with its brick walls and slated roof, I believed the castle of Giant Despair; the huge, white, fast-closed meeting-house seemed like a desolate prison; the drivers shouted to their teams in unknown tongues; the confectioners' windows recognized me with smiles of dazzling invitation, and sometimes a benign old man would pat my head and ask me how old I was. The bustle and business, the shops and sign-boards, all I saw and met were wondrous discoveries, identified with histories of men and things which I had spelled out from my story-books, or had heard my father read at morning-prayer.

Once or twice I wandered off there alone. But to turn the corner of Mill street was like rounding the Cape of Storms. Men in a hurry tumbled over me, rude boys threatened to swallow me, dirty-faced and ragged children of my own age eyed me in mute surprise, that almost equaled mine, or with precocious malignity and a jealousy that, I trust, did not ripen in them, plucked my clothes or my hair, or threw mud on me. And one boy-and a twinge of my sometime indignation now comes across me-I remember took away the ten-cent piece which hung on a red ribbon around my neck, and spent it for India crackers.

There was a stump fence opposite our house,

at the great, spangling roots and dead fibres twisted in fantastic shapes, to conjure up dragons, hydras, and all grotesque and horrible creations. And the old swamp of rank, slim hemlocks, that I used to shudder at passing, with their gnarled, naked trunks, dry limbs and mossy beards. And the tangled, dark thickets and unpathed woods with cawing rooks; these all filled my mind with shapeless shadows of strange myths. How I remember the first time I clambered up the hill and looked out upon the miles of forest, like a great, green, waving ocean, while the winds strode over it, as then my heart knew its first unutterable grasping, and swelled with vague emotions that I could not fit with words.

My reverence was sincere for "big boys twelve years old," of intrepid courage, who talked slightingly of the maternal authority, owned jack-knives, and emulated the "mouth-filling oaths" of larger men. I considered it great condescension in them to let me go with them after their cows, or when they made journeys to the pine groves after "sliver," or the alder swamps for whistles. These were the delightful music of this period, and from such excursions I returned inflated with the consciousness of travel, my torn shoes and clayey garments telling how dear I paid for the instrument in whose possession I exulted as those whom Jubal taught erewhile. Particularly I remember my paragon of chivalry, and the Mr. Great Heart of my erudition-Bill Thayer. How I hung upon his words of daring; how I admired the gasconade with which he threatened the "Shad-Laners," between whom and the urchins at our end of the town fierce feud existed; and how he fell from the pinnacle of my veneration when I saw him return vanquished and limping from a foray upon the Shad-Lane district.

There were two or three places about the premises which I used to love to steal into and ransack. One of these was the garret of the house. We went up through a trap-door into a space just under the roof, its bare rafters within my touch at the sides, and through which the chimneys passed. Here were white hats and faded or unfashionable garments. Here were boxes with bedding in them; barrels of feathers, both boxes and barrels of old pamphlets and newspapers-behind a chimney leaned an old "king's arms" musket, which at length familiarity encouraged me to lay hands upon, and near it hung a cartridge-box, a knapsack, and a bayonet in its sheath. These told me all sorts of tales. I shuddered and dropped the steel when I thought of its purpose and what might have been its deeds, and of all the Bible stories of Goliah with his sword and spear, and Samson slaying Philistines. I inquired strangely of myself what war was, and the mystery of conflict and enmity enveloped my young thought, as it has many an older. To tumble those old books

Thus do I rummage the neglected attics of my own memory; thus trace the concretion of that character

"God help thee, Elia," said Charles Lamb, "how art thou changed!"

B. B.

On is it not a dream, my child?
Is not my yearning heart beguiled?
And have not then my longings wild
Disturbed my wildered brain?
Ah, no! the wish that night and day
Hath never, never passed away-

It stirred me not in vain.

Full many a dreary month has passed,
Since o'er me swept that chilling blast,
When on thee, child, I looked my last.

Oh! since that mournful hour,

How have I longed for some charmed art
To trace thine image from my heart
With thy rich beauty's dower.

I see thee once again, my dove!
Thy face all radiant with love-
Thy parted rose-bud lips-they move-

Oh! will they never speak?

I list in vain, my warbling bird;
There gushes forth no loving word,

And tears steal down my cheek.

Thou puttest up thy mouth to kiss;
My heart is thrilled with wildest bliss-
And yet and yet-something I miss-
Thought's ever changeful play-
The variant, passing moods of life—
Its lights and shades in pleasant strife-

A dash of Sorrow's spray.

I look upon thy morning face,
Enrapt with its sun-lighted grace-
But seek in vain the faintest trace

Of some o'ershadowing cloud.
Alas! dear child! it is not thou-
Sunshine laughed never on thy brow
When grief did mine enshroud.
I miss thy winsome tenderness-
Thy music-tones, so charmed to bless;
I miss thy soothing, fond caress-

Thy sweet lips on mine own.
Carrie, my child! thou wouldst not be
Thus mute in my keen agony.
Again I am alone!

Then hide that face from out my sight!
Its radiant smile and eyes of light
But mock me in my sorrow's night-
I cannot bid it stay.

Too like it is, sweet one, to thee-
And oh! I cannot bear to see

That smile's unbroken ray.

* By the poet-painter, T. Buchanan Read.

But hush, my heart! And would I, then,
Make thee a child of grief again,

And shroud thy boundless, starry ken
In Time's bewildering night.
Ah, no! I would rejoice that now
Ray ever round thy cherub-brow
Beams of celestial light.

Freed from the cankering cares of life,
Its tears-its bitterness-its strife-
From all the ills with which is rife

This changing, mortal coil;
Oh! sweet forever be thy rest
In that Elysium of the blest-
Fair Eden's genial soil.

How could I bear that thou shouldst weep?
That the sad angel, Grief, should keep
The key to thy dear heart, or sweep

O'er thee her storm-clouds wild?
Oh let me weep my tears alone!
Ne'er shall thy lips breathe sorrow's moan,
My own, my angel child!

Then while my aching heart is riven,

I lift it weeping up to heaven,
Exulting that to thee is given

Eternal sunlight sweet!

A sunlight imaged on thy brow, Which doth not mock my misery now, As thy love-glance I meet.

I look into thy moonlit eyes,

Wherein thy soul clear mirrored lies,
As heaven looks through the star-lit skies,
The wintry night to bless.

In their deep light is earnest thought-
Visions with inward beauty fraught
No language can express.

I gaze upon thy forehead fair,

Shadowed by thy brown, clustering hair, And joy that is not written there

One line of grief or pain.

From that clear brow there beams a smile, Which sweetly utters all the while

Mother, we meet again!

Oh blest forever be that art

Which hath reversed the words-to part,
And back unto my yearning heart
My darling child hath given.
Around that face, in radiance bright,
Circleth an aureole of light-

Adumbrant sweet of heaven.

CHAPTER I. "PAQUETA, Paqueteta, Paquete," I called, throw ing the Italian and English diminutives together to express more strongly the smallness, and, I may add, prettiness, of the little being whom I knew was listening for my voice. Paqueta sprang into the room with a shower of laughter, and rolled at my feet, and took them in her hands, and embraced them, and said that she was, indeed, very happy. Paqueta was one of those "pets" to be found in every creole family of Louisiana; and which seem to be as necessary to the completeness of the establishment, as was the fool among the nobler of our ancestors, some three centuries past. The pet is ever a slave, a little slave, sometimes full-blooded and jetty black, and sometimes so near upon white, as to puzzle the eye to find a trace of the African sun in its complexion. It is adopted from chance, or whim, and grows daily into the affections, until it becomes the most indulged, pampered, spoiled, cared-for, and idolized thing about the house. With the widest liberty, its chains hang in the air, or are made of those roses which the good people of Geneva put into Jean Jaque's hands when they raised a monument to his Emile. Paqueta was a quateronne-a light quateronne, of exquisite features, and most fragile make; and, at the time of which I write, had eight years-eight years of happiness to her; for she knew not of her condition, knew not of any thing, save petting, from her birth to that hour. Thus it is that liberty is a breath, an airy something to be talked of, rather than enjoyed. What liberty have the poor? Are they not bound to labor, to a toil which is ceaseless, by the will of God, even to the grave! And what liberty have the rich? A change of place, and their own wills. Better it were that their own wills were bound about with clamps of iron three-fold deep. Paqueta was born upon the feast of Easter, and thence took her name-for the French call Easter-day "Paque ;" and a paque it was, or a festival it was, from her birth unto her death. Her hair was long and straight, and black as night; while her eyes, ox-eyes, too, were deeply blue; as if nature, knowing her mixed race, were willing to carry out the mixture by a strange compound of opposing colors. Nothing could be more delicate and tapering than her fingers; and her tiny feet were a joy to the sight. And there she lay, rolling at my feet, and looking up archly, and laughing-for she knew what was to come next; so 1 put out my hand, and commenced the daily lesson, counting upon the digits.

"Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq." I had undertaken to teach Paqueta to count five-and a mighty task it was; for she was a very little witch, and

knew me better than I knew myself, and feared lest, the lesson ended, she might lose her interest to be whistled down the wind. Oh, nature, nature! thou knowest full well what thou art about; and dost put into our breasts, even in the beginning, the ways and means of winning all our desires.

"Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq." Paqueta crooked her little fingers, and commenced; "Un, deuz, quatre-non, ce n'est pas juste; un, quatre, cinq”

and then, with a fillip upon her ear, the one hundred and ninety-ninth, she sprang away, and shouted, and laughed, and crept back again, and rolled at my feet, and took them in her hands, and said that indeed she must learn, and thought that she should do so, if she could but try again. And thus we went on, from day to day, Paqueta's little head refusing to hold more than three numerals at once, and even those three not in the right relative position. And when Paqueta became weary of her counting, and I became weary of the fillip, she would steal up behind my chair, and comb out my hair-which I then wore foolishly long, having enough of it-and fumble in my pockets for paper, and roll my locks up tightly to the skin, saying that they must curl, and that, as I was a good man, I must buy her, and she would be my nice little barber forever. Buy her! And so she knew that she was a thing of barter-a thing to be bought and sold! And what if she did know itwas she the less happy for her knowledge-and was she other than we all are, in this broad world? Who buys the maid, 'trained to all luxury, sighing for position! And who buys the youth, in science well instructed, ambitious of a name! The poor are bought daily, under every sum that civilization acknowledges; and the rich, when in want of other purchasers, sell themselves to their own vices. Small difference is it, whether the price be pounds, shillings, and pence, or a promise of ease, or power, or bread, or pleasures, forbidden in this life, to be accounted for in the next. So Paqueta was not so unfortunate, after all.

Paqueta loved dress above all things, and had the taste to wear it-the French part of her composition -and when, on a gala day, she appeared tricked out with ribbons, her joy ran over, and sparkled in her eyes, and lighted up her face, and babbled from her tongue, and played in her feet, so airily, that she seemed to tread upon nothing. She loved admiration, too; and no punishment could be devised, for any of her faults, so effective as the forbidding her to appear before the company which visited her mistress' house. She took to music from nature, for she was born amid the sound of bells; and at the Opera,